


the lesser genesis

by TrekFaerie



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angels, Archangels, Battle, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Cults, Demons, Dubious Morality, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Gen, M/M, Mad Science, Multiple Selves, Other, Past Violence, Rebellion, it is a pune; or a play on words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-07-27 02:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20038264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrekFaerie/pseuds/TrekFaerie
Summary: There is a third side.And it's growing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> might write some more. (holds up potato that says "bunny disposable demon") I just think they're neat.
> 
> I have Very Well Thought-Out reasons for why I think the disposable demon is legion and WILL holler them from the rooftops if asked. title is based on mark 5:3.
> 
> DO YOU EVER JUST ENTIRELY CHANGE A WORK FROM A ONE-SHOT TO A PLOT-BASED WIP JUST BECAUSE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley hadn't expected to see any demons.
> 
> Instead, he saw many.

After everything that had happened, Crowley hadn’t expected to hear from Heaven or Hell for a very, very long time. In fact, based on what Aziraphale had told him, he had very comfortably settled into the idea of never seeing another demon ever again.

And then Legion was in his flat one day.

There were the usual three of them, huddled together and moving as one, looking curiously at his furniture, as if they were touring a museum. The current head broke from the group and smiled at him. “Demon Crowley!” they said, with the tone of someone meeting their favorite pop star. “Where did it happen?”

“Where’d…” He’d been rather keyed up, having scented a demon when he’d walked in and expecting a fight with someone like Beelzebub or Dagon, and was having slight difficulty getting his brain out of that mode and into polite conversation. “Where’d what happen?”

“The destruction of Duke Ligur!” Their dark eyes flashed with excitement. The other two went to their side, twin bookends, and almost seemed to bat those ridiculous falsies at him. When had demons started getting fashionable? He didn’t remember them looking like that when the business with the pigs had happened. “I know it was only temporary, because of our Lord’s son, but…”

He gestured vaguely near the door, which they crowded near with visible interest. “Right here is where the first demon-on-demon murder in all of history happened,” they said with an almost reverent tone, like Aziraphale when he found a book of particular historical importance. They smiled, all shiny white teeth. “You’ve always been so ahead of the curve, Crowley, but this one was especially impressive!”

“What, did I start another trend?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

They glanced at each other

Legion had always been a bit of an odd duck. They weren’t one of the Fallen, as far as anyone could tell, and they weren’t one of the demons sired after; Ligur had theorized once that they were made up of all the angels that hadn’t truly survived the Fall, fragments of those had burned up too badly to form a whole demon, but still had the will to live – but, Crowley didn’t put much thought into that, because it was horrifying. There were always plenty of them around, up to twelve at a time, but the sentience of the ones who weren’t the current main was up to debate; they reacted and exchanged glances amongst themselves, but only one ever spoke at a time. If the main one was discorporated, another stepped in. It was a joke for the higher-level demons, to kill off a few Legion a day; they had a tendency to grate, and they recorporated with amazing speed, so nobody considered it much of a crime.

Crowley realized, staring down his sunglasses at the three little demons in his flat, that he’d never actually done it himself. Probably was the only demon of note that hadn’t. Wasn’t out of a sense of courtesy or anything; he’d just never really spent any time around them before. Which made the fact that they were there even more odd.

For lack of anything better to do, he turned on his heel and started out of his flat – only to find that they followed behind him, in a little row, like ducklings following their mother. That… was probably an issue. He should probably get help.

-

“They look like rabbits.”

Aziraphale was putting another kettle on; he hadn’t expected more than one extra for tea, especially not three extra demonic corporations that seemed much more keen on food than Crowley normally was. They’d already gone through one tin of biscuits between them, and he wondered if he ought to put together some sandwiches.

“Rabb_it_,” Crowley said, putting special emphasis on the end of the word. “They’re just the one demon. Think of it like Trinitarianism.”

“You know you aren’t to bring the First Council of Nicaea into this house,” he said sternly. [1] “… But, they _do_, don’t they? Like a cute little Havana rabbit, with those eyes.”

“Yes, fine, Legion is very cute.” He rolled his eyes. “Have you got a point?”

“It’s just… It’s rather unusual to have a cute demon, isn’t it—Oh, don’t give me that look! You know exactly what I mean… Even you have a snake as your true form. Big scary serpent and all that. Then you have frogs, and lizards, and flies… Meanwhile, this Legion chap has decided on being a rabbit.”

“It’s not like I chose it.”

They startled. There was still the sound of loud eating coming from the other room, so clearly the head Legion had left the others behind. They were sitting on Aziraphale’s spotless kitchen counter, surely getting all sorts of demonic filth all over it, taking massive bites out of an apple.

“Everyone, when they woke up and weren’t angels anymore, had some sort of animal on them.” The apple was already down to its core, and even that they gnawed on, stripping off every spare bit of flesh with their teeth. “Mine was a rabbit. I don’t know why. It’s just what I am.”

Aziraphale blinked, slowly. “… You are terribly hungry, aren’t you?” he asked, though it was not really a question.

They shrugged, giving a sheepish smile. “It takes a lot of energy, being many,” they said. “I eat a lot.”

“Well, then perhaps we ought to bring you out for a spot of lunch.” The other two were already in the doorway, peering in curiously, and Aziraphale felt a sudden rush of fondness. “There is a dear little café just a short walk from here that never judges when you order thirds; it should do quite nicely.”

As strange as they were, Aziraphale and Crowley had never attracted much interest simply walking down the street; they were almost supernatural in their ability to blend in with the crowd. The walk to the café, however, was peppered with humans, quietly but openly, gawking at the “triplets,” who walked shoulder-to-shoulder in front of them.

-

Three mouths, three meals, one being. Each had ordered something different: one had two hamburgers and fries; another had four pieces of avocado toast and eggs; and the other had a full English breakfast – and each drank coffee, though, oddly enough, all used different amounts of sugar and cream.

Aziraphale and Crowley were outside the café, watching them through the glass window; they had excused themselves, saying they needed “to get some air,” which was a polite euphemism for “we’re going to go out and gossip about you where you can’t hear.”

“I can’t imagine why they’re here,” Aziraphale said, watching the demon carry on silent but animated conversation with themselves. “And why they came to you.”

“Legion’s always been one of the more ‘native' ones,” he said. “They’ve been split between Earth and Hell for a long while; always at least one corporation in each realm. Been like that for ages.”

“So, they’re also in Hell right now?”

“Unless something’s happened.”

“And something might have.”

“If any demon was going to be… _intrigued_, by the thought of a Third Side,” he said lightly, “it’d be Legion. They’ve always had it rough.”

“I always did think Jesus was being quite harsh, when he killed those poor pigs—“

“No, no, with other demons. I can’t count the number of times somebody’s picked off one or two from the herd and just…” He made a violent gesture, and Aziraphale cringed. “They’re like a demon stress ball. Everyone takes it out on them, because they always come back.”

“How… My word. The poor rabbit…” He cocked his head to the side. “We’ll help them, of course. Whatever it is they’re here for.”

“Haven’t we already? I haven’t seen numbers on a bill like that since they stopped using the _Papiermark_!”

“My dear boy, this is a potential new ally for the Earth! For us! We would be fools to abandon the opportunity.”

Crowley glanced at the window. Having finished their food, Legion had pressed their faces against the glass, looking at them. “… They’re not staying with me,” he said. “My place isn’t kit-proofed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The apocryphal account that St. Nicholas beat Arius for his beliefs is false, but based in truth: tensions had been high, and Aziraphale had accidentally eaten all the spoon sweets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not every archangel is part of Gabriel's clique.
> 
> And they grow curious.

Though he’d originally done it out of pity, from seeing them lost and uncertain in the big city after decades of regimented kibbutz life, Aziraphale had to admit that Legion was actually a very good shop assistant. Well, sort of; they wouldn’t have been very good if it was a normal shop where people were meant to buy books, but they were very good at distracting people with little jokes, drawing them into inane conversations, and then sending them on their way with no purchases but a contented feeling about life. Some humans, mainly teenagers, showed up to just moon over “Mr. Fell’s cute nephews,” never even considering the books around them.

It gave him lots of time to step out of the shop, to run errands and have lunch with Crowley, both of which he had been doing before it had happened, just feet away from the shop door.

“Aziraphale!”

There was a young man on the sidewalk; humans parted around him like a river parts for a stone, moving past him without truly seeing him. And that was truly the most suspicious part, as he was certainly a man who would otherwise be seen: there were stripes across the breast of the violet turtleneck sweater he wore that made the eye think it was staring at a malfunctioning television set in 1973, and there certainly were Cuban-heeled matador boots below his white chinos. His hair was long and silver-blonde, and there was an amethyst stud in his nose that gave him an even greater impression of youth.

He didn’t recognize him, at first; couldn’t put face and aura to name. It had been an awfully long time, after all.

Zadkiel had never quite… fit, with his fellow archangels. Sure, he matched them in glory and power and reverence, but there had always been a sort of streak of… _feeling_ in him, that separated him from the cool professionalism of his cohort. He’d heard about his first great mission, to bring good tidings to Abraham, tell the prophet that, no, God had only told him to sacrifice his beloved son and heir in Her name as a way to show the world how child sacrifice was actually something She frowned upon, and he didn’t actually have to do it…! He’d heard that, when Abraham, aged as he was, didn’t hear him, and brought down the knife, Zadkiel had thrown his own body between them, had the knife plunge into his own ethereal throat, staining the sacrificial altar with ichor.

You never really saw Zadkiel around Head Office; he had a tendency for wanderlust. Apparently, that had brought him to Aziraphale’s shop. Which was probably a problem. Aziraphale didn’t want to think about what would happen if a standard-bearer of the celestial army came face-to-face with even a lowly member of the demonic forces. Adam probably wouldn’t fix his shop if it burnt down a second time.

“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he said. He wondered if he’d be able to keep Zadkiel outside, and if Legion was clever enough to hide themselves, or strong enough to put up a ward able to throw off an archangel.

“I wasn’t expecting to visit.” He smiled like sunshine, and he felt himself calm despite everything. “I’m here on behalf of Raziel. She’s been wanting to speak with you, but couldn’t pull herself away from her work.”

Oh. The calm dissipated as quickly as it had set in. Raziel was another archangel, and another who rarely spent time at the office; she had spent most of her time on Earth in the scientific laboratories of America before finally setting up her own compound in the desert, where she performed ecclesial experiments with her assistant, Radueriel. If Raziel had interest in you… Well. He’d never known anyone to _survive_ that interest.

“Would you like to speak somewhere more private?” he asked. “There’s, er, there’s a lovely coffee shop just a short walk from here, we could go there—“

“Aziraphale.” He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to hide the demon from me, I already know.”

“… Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “Of course. You must have sensed them immediately, sensed their evil.”

“It was less that, and more that they’re waving at me through the window.”

He turned, startled, and saw Legion in the shop window, two bunched up together near the glass. They waved at him as well. “Oh. Well. Do come in, then.”

Legion was already at work when they entered, setting up the back sitting room for company, pouring tea and just generally looking pleased to be busy with something. The other two went back into the shop to keep customers distracted, while the main stayed behind, hovering behind them.

“In all my travels over this planet… I haven’t seen such hospitality since Greece.” He gave Legion a beaming smile; they ducked, grinning and making eyes back at him. “And what a charming assistant you have!”

“What does Raziel want?” he asked, having time for literally none of that bullshit.

“Isn’t that the mad one?” Legion was leaning their arms on the back of the couch Zadkiel was sitting on. “The one that captures demons in summoning circles and runs experiments on lesser angels. That’s her, right? I’ve heard all kinds of stories, downstairs…”

“Legion! That’s a horrible thing to accuse someone of doing…”

“It’s also entirely true.” Zadkiel sipped his tea calmly. “That’s why I’m here, actually. I managed to talk her out of just sending golems after you, dragging you to her lab, and peeling you apart until she finds the secret to hellfire immunity. She wants your demon, too; her eyes were _shining_ when she heard about how he could bathe in holy water. She’s obsessed.”

“Well, I would quite like to avoid being peeled, if it’s alright by you. And I’m afraid the truth won’t be nearly as exciting for her as she thinks it would be…” He trailed off, sighing. “If this is some sort of scheme from the other archangels, I would appreciate you telling me in advance… If Gabriel gets to have the last laugh, I would have rather burned.”

He shook his head vigorously. “She hasn’t been upstairs since the atom bomb fell,” he said. “This would be just for her own book, not for theirs.”

“Oh! Did she disagree with it as well? I myself was quite vocal with my protests—“

“No, she was just furious that they put Uriel in charge of it instead of her.”

“… Ah.”

Silence fell over them. “… Well, if she wants to know so badly, she’ll have to stop whatever she’s doing and come to London. I’m not much for travel anymore, and _certainly_ not to America. Beastly place that it is.”

“She isn’t, either, but I think this will stir her from her lair. Expect her,” he said, in a way that was definitely not at all nerve-wracking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asking questions used to be enough to make you Fall.
> 
> When did times change?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there comes a time in every fandom where i just start churning out Pure Self-Indulgence and this is that time

They were to meet at the Ritz, which Crowley would have taken as a personal slight if it’d come from literally any other being in the universe. Legion had told him, on the drive over, in a hushed voice, all the rumors they’d heard in Hell: how Raziel was more of a rogue angel than any of the Fallen had ever been (times had changed, he thought, not at all bitterly), how her experiments were condoned by the higher-ups in Heaven because nearly everything she did could further help Heaven’s cause in its war with Hell… How she would summon weaker demons to her earthly compound, trap them and observe them and discover the most painful and effective ways to make them discorporate, or worse. How her companion, a lower-ranked angel named Radueriel, had the unique power to form lesser angels from his words – little sprites, mindless forms of light, the raw potential of proper angelic form – and yet… not a single new angel had ever joined Heaven’s ranks after he had bound himself to her.

She sounded like a riot, honestly.

A hotel butler met them in the lobby and brought them to the royal suite, and as they made their way up and into the room, he made a mental note to rent it out himself, for him and Aziraphale. Perhaps for an anniversary or something. How expensive could it be, if an angel could afford it?

From afar, they looked like a wealthy widow and her bodyguard, a slight figure in white on a plush chair and a black-suited figure with dark sunglasses. It was only closer that you realized the white of her clothing was really a lab coat, a golden sigil of angel wings on her breast pocket; her companion had a similar symbol as a lapel pin. Her eyes were pure white, and she seemed to make next to no effort to conceal them from humans; if the butler that had brought them up to the room noticed, he was too well-bred to mention it. It made you wonder just what the other one had under his glasses.

The hotel had a suite booked for Doctor Raziya Galizur and Eric Radbourne, paid for by Aether Science Ministry.

Zadkiel was there as well, looking out of place among the finery with his fashionable but eclectic clothes, drinking whiskey neat. He smiled at them as they walked in. “They’ve arrived,” he said.

Raziel’s white gloved hands clapped together eagerly as she… well, he assumed she could _See_ them, even if those eyes of hers didn’t see – as she stood in greeting. “Please, please, do sit – all of you, angel and demon.” Her voice was light, like bells, and quavered slightly, and Radueriel supported her by the elbow until she sat again – and Crowley knew an act when he saw one. [1] “Isn’t that a marvel of its own? A sign of the times, isn’t it, Zadkiel?”

“Interesting times, you could call them!” He led Aziraphale, Crowley, and Legion to the chairs set up next to the coffee table in front of Raziel, clapped the latter on the shoulder, and stepped away.

Raziel smiled. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen either of you,” she said.

“Well, you’ve gone and exiled yourself all the way to the colonies, haven’t you?”

Crowley leaned towards Aziraphale and whispered, “Uh, yeah, quick question – have I met her before?”

Aziraphale leaned in further and said, sotto voce, “Do you not remember? She was in the Garden so often!” And Crowley merely shrugged, as he did not remember, and did not want to admit that he remembered just about zero non-Aziraphale-related things from the majority of time periods.

“You stole my book,” she said cheerfully.

But, he did remember crimes, and being accused of one he hadn’t even done… “Listen, lady—“

“_Technically_, I borrowed it from Enoch and simply… forgot to return it before She took him?” Aziraphale winced slightly, putting up his hands in a plaintive gesture. “It is a very interesting book, you know. Three hundred years simply isn’t enough time to properly savor it…! And I did give it to his grandson, eventually! Lord knows Noah needed all the help he could get…”

“I’m glad it was of use to the humans. It’s why I wrote it in the first place.” She leaned back, hands placed primly in her lap. “Now, enough small talk. You know why you’re here. You have piqued my scientific curiosity, and I will not rest until it’s satisfied.”

“You’re going to be disappointed,” Aziraphale said. “It’s not going to be what you want.”

“You assume to know what I want,” she said. “That’s foolish of you.”

“What else could this be about? I know about your experiments with hellfire and holy water. You’ve been trying to develop an angelic immunity to hellfire for thousands of years.”

“And a demonic immunity to holy water. Just don’t tell Michael.” She winked. “Everyone Upstairs is convinced I’m working tirelessly to assure our victory over Hell’s forces. They don’t know my true reason.”

Crowley cocked an eyebrow. “And that would be…?”

“Just to know! Simply that. I learned so many secrets of the universe, standing at my Lord God’s side, writing down Her Word. But, there are more unanswered questions in existence than there are stars in the sky and grains of sand on the shores. It’s why you’ll find me quite… thankful, for what you did. I can’t speak for most, but I feel my fellow Earthbound would agree. This extra time you’ve granted us all is certainly a gift.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Then, he opened them again. “We swapped,” he said.

“… Explain.”

And he did, starting with his discorporation in the bookshop, and ending with their respective trials. [2] Crowley didn’t know what he expected to happen after that; he’d started to get tense as the seconds passed in silence, as the archangel across from them grew unnervingly still, her eyes wide, her lips parted slightly.

He definitely didn’t expect her to leap the coffee table in a single bound, nearly knocking Aziraphale’s and his chair clean off the ground with the force of her body hitting his, her knee pinning his leg to the chair the way one would the wings of a butterfly. She had waved a hand across her face, leaving behind the massive rig of a surgical loupe; she had one hand free to adjust the magnification of it, and another to pull Aziraphale’s eye open as she shined a bright light into it.

“Why did I never even consider – it’s the same stock, there must be enough physical similarity – how did it feel, before and after – Radueriel, dear, fetch my notebooks! What an absolute _marvel_!”

“Get your damn hands off him—“ Before he even had a chance to wrench her off his angel, he felt a strong arm wrap around his neck and lift him off the ground; he kicked back against a force that felt like steel wrapped in muscled flesh. “Get your damn hands off _me_, you lummox!”

“This is _most_ undignified behavior for an archangel!” Aziraphale said in a huff, sounding much more like she’d mixed up spoons at tea and not that she had her fingers hooked into his mouth like he was a big-mouth bass, apparently examining his teeth for signs of demonic imperfections. 

“Oh, you just have to come to my lab! The humans, they’ve invented these wonderful little machines that track the vital signs of the body – and I’ve modified them, of course, for my own uses! We can leave immediately; just let me—“

Her fingers on both hands, so close to a snap, had suddenly been grabbed by Legion, who yanked her off Aziraphale and onto the ground with surprising amount of strength. She hit the floor hard, the breath clearly knocked from her, and she looked up at them at first with shock, and then with a sort of amused recognition.

Aziraphale smoothed out his coat, clearly annoyed; Crowley was at his side in a moment, once Radueriel had dropped him to attend to Raziel. “Alright, angel?” he asked.

“It’s certainly not the hardest an archangel has ever hit me,” he said wryly. “I’ll live.”

Raziel rose to her feet, pulling herself up on his arm. “I must ask your forgiveness,” she said, sounding more embarrassed than sorry. “I’m not, well…”

“You’re not used to asking before you start poking and prodding, are you,” Crowley said flatly.

“No, not usually. I got a little overexcited – you must realize, the idea that an angel can even possess is something extraordinary! An angel and a demon swapping corporeal forms, their spirits apparently unharmed by their respective angelic and demonic natures… Further study must be done. There is _so_ much potential…”

“And this knowledge…” Aziraphale paused. “You’re planning on keeping it yourself? No mention in your memos to Head Office?”

She smiled thinly. “You know, it’s quite funny,” she said. “You accuse me of having ‘exiled’ myself, but you don’t know the first thing about your fellow Earthbound.”

“’Fellow…’ I suppose I've just never really... We’ve always tended to keep to ourselves,” he said, gesturing between himself and Crowley. “We’ve never really needed much more than each other, haven’t we?”

Crowley shrugged. He certainly couldn’t name more than a handful of the other demons that walked the Earth, and he’d never felt any desire to communicate with them. He guessed Aziraphale had felt the same.

“… Do you even _send_ memos?”

“A few. Just enough paperwork to keep the desk jockeys too busy to keep too much of an eye on us.” She sat back down on the couch. “The majority of us keep up appearances while pursuing our own agendas… I’ve actually found that very few of the angels assigned to Earth answered Gabriel’s horn. My Radueriel very nearly went to take his place in the celestial army, but decided to stay at my side at the very last moment.”

“And he doesn’t look like one to miss out on a good fight.” He looked up at Radueriel. Though they both wore dark sunglasses, they were both very different; Radueriel’s looked more like aviators, while Crowley’s looked more cool. “So, why’d you do it? What made you stay?”

“Loyalty,” he said, in a voice like a mallet hitting the wooden bars of a xylophone.

From nothing at all, a lesser angel formed. It looked like little more than a vaguely humanoid beam of light, like a fairy that needs children to clap and believe in it to live. Raziel took the lesser angel in her hand, petting and cossetting its little wings.

“Just one more question,” she said, “before you leave. Aziraphale, when was the last time you spoke to God?”

“Shortly before the Apocalypse, I—“

“Not the Metatron. Not any archangel claiming to speak for Her. When was the last time you heard from Her directly?”

He frowned. “… The Garden, I suppose,” he said. “After that, there were always too many humans around. They said Her Voice could destroy them, if they heard it directly.”

“Don’t _they_ say such... interesting things?”

She closed her fist. When it opened again, it was empty.

“Thank you for this conversation – the both of you,” she said. “It’s been… illuminating. And has given me much to think about.”

-

They were waiting for the elevator when Crowley realized something was wrong. “… Wait-wait-wait… One, two…” He groaned. “Aziraphale! We’ve lost one.”

“Did you not notice? They stepped out with Zadkiel about ten minutes ago,” he said, just a little tartly. “They’ll meet us downstairs, won’t they?”

The other two, wordless as they were, just gave sheepish grins. One nodded, however, and by the time they all arrived downstairs, Zadkiel and Legion were in the lobby, looking no worse for wear. “Oh, good,” Zadkiel said. “You’re still here!”

Aziraphale frowned. “Were you… _planning_ for the eventuality that she would transport us to her laboratory to begin experiments?” he asked.

“You have to expect the worst and hope for the best, right?” He smiled. “So, I was _hoping_ to see you come down, and I was _expecting_ to stop her before the vivisection started!”

-

“Remember when you thought angels were inherently good?” Crowley asked with a drawl as they walked out to where the Bentley was illegally parked. “That was a silly time.”

"'Good' is increasingly relevant."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] He’s seen Gene Wilder movies; he’s got her number. 
> 
> [2] Legion high-fived themselves when they came up in the story – and then their faces fell, as they realized that meant they had actually nearly had a role in destroying Crowley. (Aziraphale too, of course, but, y’know. _Crowley_.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hail the new master.

He was starting to get used to having Legion around. Whatever time they didn’t spend helping Aziraphale at the shop, they spent firmly at Crowley’s side, and, well… He’d never really ranked an assistant, for all the bad work he did for Hell! He wasn’t like Beelzebub, who’d always had Dagon at her beck and call. And he wasn’t like the demons of rank, the dukes and counts, who used imps and Legion themselves as unwilling servants; after all, when he absently asked Legion to get him something so he wouldn’t have to get up himself, or when he asked him to bring the car around, the kid did so _gladly_. Practically jumped to attention every time he spoke. It was one hell of an ego boost, at least.

So, he’d definitely noticed when Legion hadn’t come by yet that day – and he noticed that when he did arrive, it was by running, one of them slamming the door behind them as the others dove behind a wall.

There was a knock at the door.

He looked at Legion, and then at the door. “The people that would be interested in killing _me_ would not be the sort to knock,” he said. “Can I assume that the ones interested in killing you are rather the same?”

Legion paused, silently consulting among themselves. Then, they nodded.

“Lovely. Never had so many visitors in my damned life…”

There was a woman at the door. She was what people used to call “statuesque,” with a dignified air and a mane of red hair similar in shade to his own. At her side was a sullen young man, dark-skinned with a splash of pale across his face, drowning in a beanie and sweatshirt that, Crowley noted, all had the symbol of the band Nine Inch Nails on it. There was another next to him, a smiling woman in silken clothes more piebald than most demons normally wore – for that was what they were, all three of them. One was even the name that had come to his mind, when he’d thought about the other demons assigned to Earth.

Lilith smiled, her teeth white and sharp behind painted lips. “Master Crowley,” she said, her low voice tinged with reverence. “May we enter?”

“… Yeah?” He stepped aside, allowed them to walk inside. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you ask permission before, Lil.” [1]

It was a bit of a tight fit, with seven corporeal forms in one entry hall, but being demons, they didn’t mind. “You remember my ward, Cain.” The youth shrugged an apathetic greeting. “And Nybbas, of course.” The woman gave a theatrical bow. “We’ve been waiting for you to contact me, but when you didn’t, we decided to take it upon ourselves and visit.”

“Can’t imagine why you’d expect that,” he said, hooking his thumbs into his belt. “I haven’t exchanged words with any of you since I taught Cain how to find a stone with proper heft.”

There was a pause, during which her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “… He doesn’t know.” Her voice was dangerously calm, and she only glanced at Legion from the corner of her eye. “Why does he not know?”

Legion crossed their arms and glowered. “Because I haven’t told him yet, you daft old witch!” he said. “I was waiting for the right moment!”

Nybbas snorted. “Is there ever a right moment to tell someone there’s been a cult set up to worship them?” she asked.

Crowley meant to speak, but all that came past his lips was a choked, “Ngk.”

“I _told_ you not to entrust them with it,” Cain said. “They’re easily distracted! They never should have been entrusted with our new master!”

“_Who_?!” He felt hysteria start to bubble up in his throat. “Your new -- _what_?!”

Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just because you’re jealous of their getting to spend time with your crush—“

“_I am not_!”

Cain and Crowley had shouted at the same time, but they all turned to stare at him. He felt the beginnings of a migraine forming against his temple, and his hands flexing in and out of fists. “I’m… Fucking hell, I’m not anyone’s master! What are you maniacs on about, talking like that? If Lucifer caught wind of you talking like this, we’d all be so many ice cubes in the Cocytus before you could say, ‘Oh no, Lord Satan, we’re just having a laugh!’”

“The Fallen followed Lucifer when he questioned Her word,” Nybbas said. “He _lost_, and still they followed him. But what right does he have to the throne of Hell, over someone who faced one of Her greatest weapons against our kind and _lived_?”

“You laughed in the face of God, Crowley,” Lilith said, eyes shining and eager. “You are, and always have been, Her true Adversary, not Lucifer.”

“Oh.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I’m about to pass out.”

Legion stomped their feet, one each. “I told you he wasn’t ready!”

He… definitely needed to sit down. He started for his office, remembered his remarkable aesthetic choice to have a literal throne as a chair, and elected to head to the sitting room instead. That’s what it was for, right? Sitting. Though, admittedly, when he reached the white leather couch, he didn’t so much as sit on it as he flopped over, head bouncing on the cushion as he stared up at the ceiling.

His view was suddenly impeded by two heads. Legion was above him, a concerned look on their face. “I sent them away,” they said. “I’m… It was never meant to be like this, y’know? I didn’t expect you to treat me so kindly, and Aziraphale… He’s right. I did get distracted.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“This… cult of mine, this mad little thing Lilith’s gone and done… How many demons are in it?”

They blinked. “… Legions.”

There were then three heads, and his phone was being held up to his ear. “Aziraphale,” he said, still assuming that no one else would have any reason to call him.

_“Dear, are you quite alright? I assume Legion answered the phone; all I could hear was breathing… What’s wrong?”_

“I’m as all right as one can be,” he said, “after having been told that they’ve become unwillingly tangled up in a heretical cult.”

_“… Crowley?”_

“Yes, angel?”

_“However did you know what I was calling about?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] She certainly hadn’t asked when, driven mad by Adam being… well, himself, she’d pushed her way past Aziraphale and free soloed her way out of Eden.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When has a revolution planned in a bar ever gone wrong?

To mortals, it was just another side street in Brooklyn, empty but for litter and sleeping cats. To all others, though, there was a simple door, guarded by a golem just vaguely humanoid enough that it wouldn’t have attracted too much attention, even without the miracles hiding it from human eyes. It regarded them for a few moments before stepping aside, opening the door. “Thank you,” Aziraphale said, quite unnecessarily.

The air was thick with tobacco smoke and holy power; it seemed to thrum like music from every angel in the room. Aziraphale couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen so many angels in one place when they weren’t planning a war… though, he supposed they weren’t exactly _not_ doing that. A bar was certainly a unique place to do it.

There were at least a dozen, but he could feel the presence of many more; not everyone ranked a corporeal form they could use to go off and plan rebellion, after all. He recognized Zadkiel, who was off on his own, smoking what was certainly hash from a hookah seated on a table. They joined him, settling into the booth. Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his own under the table, squeezing it lightly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Bit jetlagged, but fine.” He squeezed back. “Why? Should I not be?”

“It’s just, it’s a bit… angelic in here, isn’t it? If the floor of a church scorched you, I could only imagine how the energy here must make you feel.”

“I don’t feel much of anything. This place may be owned by an angel, but it’s no more sanctified than your book…”

He’d stopped. Aziraphale looked where his gaze had fallen, and immediately understood why.

Of all the angels he expected to have been caught up in Zadkiel and Raziel’s “Earthbound” business, Raguel had never been very high on the list. Sure, he was a very Earthly sort of angel; the nature of his business brought him to the planet more often than most had reason to, even if he wasn’t specifically assigned to it. But… He’d always been such a stickler for rules! He’d never seemed to have any problems with the leadership of Gabriel or Michael. The idea that he, of all angels, would join forces with angels that, logically, he should have been helping to cast down into the flames…

That was a terrible sign, wasn’t it? It had to be a sign of something terribly, terribly wrong.

“Interesting times,” Zadkiel had called them. Wasn’t that a curse? 

Raguel was a handsome man; very few angels actually looked like the paintings classical artists had made, but he was one of the clearest examples of the ones that did. But, he was cruel, and you could see it in those beautiful eyes; and more than that, he _enjoyed_ his cruelty, _reveled_ in it. Unlike other cruel angels, who mainly inflicted humans, or the occasional demon, Raguel’s cruelties were almost exclusively reserved for his (however soon they were to be former) fellow angels.

He realized, just a bit too late, that group included Crowley.

Raguel was leaning across the table, mindful of neither Aziraphale nor Zadkiel nor Zadkiel’s hookah. He was smiling at Crowley, who regarded him with a skillful poker face, not moving an inch, somehow retaining eye contact the entire time. “I’ve never gotten the chance to admire my work _after_ before,” he said. His hand moved ever closer to Crowley’s face; Aziraphale watched it, swallowing bile in the back of his throat. “I wonder… If I stopped to think about it, would I remember you? Who you were before I followed Her orders and sent you to the depths of Hell? There were so many, demon, I just can’t be expected to remember them all… But, maybe I could. Maybe you burned pretty enough to be worth remembering.”

He tapped his fingers against the snake at Crowley’s temple.

Aziraphale’s wings were out before he finished standing; Zadkiel had to jump to steady his hookah. The force of it threw Raguel back, but not far; his wings opened as well, and he took a fighting pose. Aziraphale took one as well, though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d physically fought at all, let alone with another angel. If he had to, though, he would, without a second thought, for Crowley—

“Oh, leave the li’l demon alone, Rag! It’s just a cute little pet; it’s no threat.”

It really showed how utterly bizarre every being in that room was, considering Aziraphale had not even noticed the lion until just that moment.

It was a lioness, to be precise. It didn’t seem to be a celestial vessel, or even something like a familiar; it was an actual, legitimate, terrifying lion, sitting tame as a housecat at the feet of a redheaded woman dressed very much how a child would imagine someone on safari would. She was sitting on a stool at the bar, fiddling with the stick spearing the cherry in her apple martini.

She laughed. “See! Ya gone and upset its master!”

“I’m not… _He_ is not anyone’s pet! He is his own man—demon! He’s his own demon, and he is my lover, and I did _not_ come all the way from England to be treated in such an awful way! I thought you all were here because you don’t like what the Archangels are doing, but I must be wrong if all of you are set on acting just like them!” He slammed his free fist on the table; Zadkiel desperately gathered the hookah into his arms, cradling it like a child. “I refuse to go out of the frying pan and into the fire; if you want to overthrow Gabriel only to act just as hegemonic and cruel as him, then I shall bid you all a good existence, and we shall leave. What will it be, then?”

The room was utterly silent. The woman blinked.

“… Your lover?” she asked, apparently still very much there.

“It’s great that everyone in this room knows next to nothing about each other and still think they can manage a revolution,” Crowley said, leaning back in the booth. “Even Lucifer did icebreakers.”

“We were never meant to know much about each other,” Zadkiel said, gingerly setting his hookah back up on the table. “It’s how our jobs are set up. Those of us that do were specifically going against protocol.”

“And for some of us…” Raziel was at a table across the room, shrouded in darkness that had to be Radueriel. “… for some, that is why we’re here.”

“I’m here ‘cause if those stuffed shirts up there in Heaven go and try to end the world again, they’ll go and destroy all of nature along with it.” She crossed her arms. “Name’s Ariel, by the way. I call her Bast.”

“… D’you like whales?”

Her eyes burned fiercely. “I love ‘em so much,” she said, voice choked with emotion.

Crowley nodded solemnly, pulling Aziraphale by the arm until he was back in his seat, leaning slightly against Crowley. “See, we’ve already got so much in common.”

“It’s why I asked you to bring him along when I called, Aziraphale.” Raziel stood, moving into the center of the room. “Alone, we aren’t powerful enough to take down the Archangels. I believe having demonic allies will turn the tide, and I believe the Fallen are especially crucial to success.”

“If I remember correctly,” Raguel said, returning to his own table and his own friends, “the Fallen aren’t all that familiar with success to begin with.”

Aziraphale felt Crowley tense next to him, but Raziel had already started speaking before he could get out whatever insult he’d been building up. “Heaven had one major advantage in their fight against the rebellious angels,” she said, “one that they no longer have.”

“Flaming swords?” Aziraphale asked with all earnestness, trying to keep the sinking feeling in his gut from settling in.

“No.” She grinned, madly. “God.”

She threw her hands up to the sky, tossed her head back, and said in a strong, powerful voice, “There is no God! There has never been a God! God is an illusion, a myth! God does not exist!”

There was a noise like someone being murdered, and Aziraphale was shocked to realize it had come from him. All around him, the angels were shaking and gasping, pulling away from where she stood, as if expecting to see her burn, to see the ground open beneath her and swallow her whole, sending her to the fiery pits. They moaned and cried, rended their clothes, their hair, their flesh, the shocking blasphemy of an archangel hitting them deep, in the very cores of their existence.

Moments passed. And nothing happened.

“Have none of you ever noticed? Have none of you ever _wondered_?” She lowered her head, still grinning, her lips twisted cruel and mocking. “Have you never wondered why no angel has fallen since the birth of the Nephilim? Have you never wondered why _you_ haven’t Fallen? Have you never considered, as you’ve committed venial, even mortal, sins, greater than any that ever damned your brethren, that perhaps no angel Falls because they _cannot_? After all, only one being in all of Creation can Fell an angel. Only one.”

She made a quick sign of the cross, bowing her head. “I do not know what happened. I do not know if someone did something, purposeful or accidental… But, I can assure you all, with greater certainty than I have ever felt about anything before: God is gone. She is not in Heaven; Her throne is empty. Something has happened, and the Archangels know, and they are keeping it from us.”

She swayed, as if suddenly tired. Radueriel was behind her immediately with a chair, which she gratefully sat down on. “We are all here for different reasons,” she said, “but this is what must bind us. Our common cause must be the search of knowledge: to find what happened to Her, and why they are lying to us.”

Crowley had torn his shirt clean in half, still gripping the fabric tightly. “You’re… Are you trying to tell us you think She’s _dead_?”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m not even entirely sure She _could_ die. It is merely one of many possibilities.”

“’That is not dead which can eternal lie,’” Zadkiel said softly, almost as if he were thinking aloud. “’And with strange aeons, even death may die.’”

“You’re nuttier than a fruitcake, Doc!” Ariel said. “There’s gotta be some other reason for all this!”

“If Gabriel committed treason against our Lord God,” Raguel said, very calmly, “I shall pluck every feather from his wings and smother him with them.”

He could feel Crowley shiver against him.

“All we have now are hypotheses.” She frowned deeply. “You’re all overreacting.”

“You _did_ just tell us God isn’t in Heaven anymore, Raziel,” Aziraphale said mildly. “I believe everyone here is taking it remarkably well, considering.”

“The only way we can know for sure is to send someone to see the throne of God themselves,” she said. “As the Archangels clearly won’t allow that to happen, we shall have to fight our way in.”

“We’ll be slaughtered,” Raguel said. “They have all the celestial forces behind them.”

She smiled. “Not nearly as many as you would assume,” she said. “And I happen to have a few… _inventions_ on my hands. I believe they will settle the score considerably, along with our demon allies.”

“Now, Doc, I’m not exactly a math whiz or nothin’, but right now? I’m just countin’ one demon ally, not allies.”

“I’ve recently come into contact with a… faction, of sorts, in Hell,” Crowley said. “They’d be a bit amenable to a bit of parley, if a trusted source were to assure them that you’d all consider helping their own noble cause.”

“Never.”

“Oh, ignore ol’ Rag! He’s only here ‘cause he’s got bad blood with Michael over some dumb junk from the war.” Ariel leaned forward in her seat; the lion leaned forward as well. “C’mon, spill! What’s your little gang up to?”

He grinned. “How’s overthrowing Satan sound?” he asked.

Raziel murmured lightly. “We would be… amenable to that idea, yes,” she said.

“It’s real angel-like, thwarting Lucifer like that,” Ariel said, nodding vigorously. “I reckon She’ll be real pleased when She comes back and sees we’ve made Heaven _and_ Hell all better in Her name!”

Crowley nodded his agreement along with everyone else, pointedly not noting that it would actually be done in _his_ name, and he’d be damned again before he let Her anywhere near it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting in a park. Not that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the busy season is ending and i have to remember how writing works again

Legion was waiting for them at the shop when they arrived back in London. At some point while they were gone, they’d gotten the idea to start putting ribbons in their hair; each one seemed to favor different colors, which Crowley had to admit, made it much easier to keep track of who the main one was, or which one you’d just given an order to.

The current main had ribbons with a skull pattern, all done up in rainbows. “I minded the shop and watered the plants every day, just like you said,” they said. “But, I couldn’t really figure out what ‘threaten the plants for their failures’ meant? So I just played some music on my phone for ‘em, and they seemed to like it. As much as plants like things.”

“How many sales did you have?” Aziraphale asked.

They beamed. “Not a one!”

“Excellent.” He turned and smiled at Crowley. “Aren’t they just the most useful of rabbits?”

“Ready to be useful again, kid?” They nodded eagerly, standing at attention. “I need you to contact Lilith for me. I haven’t got her number, and doing it the old-fashioned way…”

“I’m not even sure where to find a live goat on such short notice,” Aziraphale said.

“She’s got enough pets already. It’s a mess.”

“What should I tell her when I’ve called her up?” they asked.

“Tell her to meet me… It’s got to be a very neutral place, if it’s going to suit everyone.”

“The park?”

Crowley shook his head. “No, no, that’s _our_ place… It’s got to be somewhere that’s got an equal amount of demonic and heavenly energies, so both sides will be comfortable.”

“… Parliament?”

Crowley let out a snort of laughter, clapping Legion on the shoulder. “Keeping you around continues to pay dividends.”

-

There was a lion in a red service dog vest in the middle of the Old Palace Yard.

There were a few more interesting things going on. Like an archangel wearing an oversized t-shirt proclaiming that the wearer had ridden the London Eye and had only gotten a lousy t-shirt and a cheap polyester bearskin hat. But, he was very much stuck on the lion, which yawned at her master’s feet and stared dolefully at human passersby, who gave her brief doe-eyed looks before letting her get back to whatever important work she was doing.

“How exactly do you get away with doing that?” he asked. Ariel had a massive Union Jack-decorated plastic bag carrying a varied assortment of additional kitschy, touristy crap, which she was taking out and showing piece by piece to a politely disinterested Aziraphale. They didn’t have much else to do as they waited.

“Humans are awful funny, y’know?” She gave Bast a quick scratch behind the ears. “They really do all the important work themselves; you just gotta give ‘em enough to work with. And if you make it so it’s more reasonable to see a golden retriever than a lion, they just go right along with it!”

“You could probably get away with something like an emotional support lion, these days,” Aziraphale said. “Weren’t those one of yours, Crowley?”

He nodded. It had taken him a while to explain the concepts of allergies and recycled air on planes, but once he had, Beelzebub had been mildly impressed.

“Real glad Raziel decided to give me the task of meetin’ your team, Crowley,” she said. “I ain’t been to London since, gosh… Whenever I went and got the Game Act through. Too dang long.”

“I’m just glad she sent someone who isn’t actively hateful towards demons.” Even if the demons they were meeting today weren’t one of the Fallen, he didn’t want to think about what would happen if someone like Raguel met someone like Lilith.

“Never had much quarrel with demons, myself. Now, ‘course I’d like them to give a heck of a lot more respect towards the Lord Almighty, but otherwise there’s nothin’ wrong with just wantin’ to do things a different way.” She paused. “Will these ones have one of them cute li’l critters on their heads? I saw somebody like that when I was with the Maasai, a long ways back; real cute tarantula…”

“Legion’s a bit like a bunny, but, no, they’re not that sort.”

“Why is that?”

Aziraphale had been desperately signaling for him to help get Ariel to stop her nightmarish show and tell of royal baby memorabilia for a solid ten minutes, so he decided to throw him a lifeline. “It’s just fashion, really. It’s always been trendy in Hell. Makes getting around humans harder, though; you’ve got to have all sorts of clever ways of covering them up. And since Cain’s up here full-time, and Lilith’s with him more often than not… Oh, speak of the devils.”

Lilith and Cain entered the park, looking like a better class of Addams cousin. Cain was carrying the large black umbrella shielding Lilith from the dreary English sun, and Legion, who walked swiftly behind them, looked rather put out about not getting the gig.

“Gosh, is she pretty,” Ariel said, letting out a low whistle through her teeth. “Adam didn’t know what he was missin’.”

Crowley, who had personally watched Adam weep bitterly and pound his fists against the walls of Eden for days, merely nodded.

Lilith strode up to them, heels clicking against stone, and gave Ariel a brief once-over. “You’re the representative of the—oh, what’s that name you’re calling yourselves?”

“The Earthbound, my lady,” Legion said. They surreptitiously slipped over to stand closer to Crowley and Aziraphale, nervously eying the lion.

“Ah, yes. It’s a very charming little name.”

Ariel shrugged. “Doc’s the one that’s big on namin’ stuff,” she said. She either hadn’t picked up on Lilith’s condescending tone, or she was actively choosing to ignore it. “I’m just here to help how I can. Last thing I need is Gabriel having his druthers and goin’ off to destroy all of God’s lovely animals!”

Lilith laughed lightly. “Isn’t it ironic, that you’re willing to work with demons to protect something from Heaven?” she said.

Her nose scrunched up. “Heaven’s got nothin’ to do with it,” she said. “It’s all the Archangels. They’re the ones screwin’ around and goin’ behind Her back to do whatever they please.”

“Aren’t you an archangel?” She gave Legion a puzzled expression, but he seemed more concerned with Bast, who, in very cat-like fashion, had noticed their antipathy and had decided to investigate further. “I-I mean, you talk about them like they’re entirely different…”

“Just ‘cause they are! Those ones, Gabriel and Michael and everybody workin’ under ‘em… They’ve been up in Home Office too long.” She shook her head. “I don’t think the Lord ever wanted us to stay locked up there, lookin’ down on everybody… How can ya shepherd a flock you’ve never even seen?”

“I never thought I’d hear an angel talk like that.” Cain chuckled, but it sounded off, like it was something he didn’t do very often. “

“Very few are as…” Aziraphale fretted his fingers, clearly searching for a polite term. “… _theatrical_, as our Ariel. But, quite a few of us believe very much the same.”

“Enough for an army?” Lilith arched one bushy brow. “I have legions at my command, fully committed and dedicated to the cause of our Master Crowley.”

“Ngk.”

Legion winced. “Still not used to it…”

“Can you say the same, Archangel Ariel?”

“Well…” She thought for a long moment – and then, spit at the ground by their feet, much to everyone’s disgust. “It ain’t half as impressive as a legion, but what we lack in numbers, we do make up in grit!”

“And Raziel’s formidable arsenal of hellish and celestial weaponry,” Aziraphale said dryly.

“She made me a rifle!” She preened. “It shoots bullets with sigils on ‘em!”

-

In the shadows of Parliament, a representative of both heavenly and demonic rebellion shook hands to seal an alliance, and the Earth seemed to almost pause for a moment, as if concerned what turning further would bring upon it.

And then an angel’s lion latched onto a demon’s thigh, and the Earth moved on, appeased.

(A few miracles, both demonic and celestial, kept Legion from discorporating, which they appreciated, because they were growing quite used to that body after having avoided dying for so long.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am easily manipulated by praise and promises of attention

The Earthbound gathered in front of the gilded gateway of Heaven, a loose band in street clothes, carrying a motley but frightful array of weaponry. Raziel led them, a sword that seemed much too large for her at her hip. She strode up to the gatekeeper, a grizzled old man with a scroll and a deep frown, and smiled beatifically.

“Simon Peter,” she said. “It’s been so long. Would you mind calling on your master for me? I have urgent business.”

“Our Lord God is not accepting audiences at this time,” he said. “You know this.” 

“Gabriel, you fool.” Her smile cracked at the corner. “Bring me your true master.”

The saint gathered the scroll to his chest and turned to run through the gate. It seemed that only seconds after he passed through it that Gabriel and Michael stepped out of it, Uriel and Sandalphon at their sides. Three of them were armed, but Gabriel merely held his arms out, palms up and open, and gave Raziel a smile that didn’t even begin to reach his Bette Davis eyes.

“I didn’t know you were visiting!” he said. “If I’d known, sister, I would’ve sent someone to greet you!”

He looked over her, past her, at the crowd behind her. Some of the lesser angels cringed and cowered; even some of the archangels found their grips on their weapons slipping, their certain expressions growing unsure. Gabriel had served Their God for untold aeons; he had exulted in Her very presence. Most of them had never even seen Her; Gabriel _knew_ Her.

But, so had Raziel. And she didn’t flinch.

“I’m not interested in your pageantry and formality, Brother Gabriel,” she said coolly. “You know what I’m here for.”

He shrugged, helplessly. “I honestly don’t,” he said. “I have no idea what you’re up to.”

“Ever since I destroyed your spies.”

“Ever since—“ His lips pursed. “You didn’t.”

“Did you really wonder why they never came back?” She tilted her head. “I was sure that was why you never sent more.”

“Do you think I would’ve let you continue with your… your sick little experiments if I knew you’d—““Learned how to destroy a lesser angel without hellfire.” She smiled. “I bet you wish you knew what else I’d learned, now that it’s come to this.”

“And what is ‘this,’ Raziel?” he asked, his voice thin and tense. “Because this looks a whole fucking lot like treason from where I’m standing.”

“Treason is when you go against your sovereign, or your leader. You are neither.” 

“This, Gabriel, is merely dealing with an usurper.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “You have to be joking! Do you really think your measly little group of freaks and outcast angels is going to stand a chance against the entire Heavenly Host?”

She grinned.

“Not alone.”

There was a sound like a ram’s horn.

A trumpet answered.

-

It was a suitable distraction. With all the attention on the pearly gates, nobody gave much mind to the service entrance.

“Mind the gap, my dear.” Aziraphale took Crowley by the arm and gently helped him over the last bit of the escalator. “It takes a bit of getting used to.”

“Doesn’t matter. If this all goes well, neither of us will ever have to take it ever again.”

He took Aziraphale’s hand in his own, squeezing it. “Ready?”

He squeezed back. “As I’ll ever be.” 

Then, hand in hand, they walked together down the empty hallways of Heaven, to stand before the great golden door. Once it was open, they would witness what few angels had seen or were even meant to ever see: the throne of God. They pushed it open—

It was jammed.

“Hold on. Bloody thing…”Crowley stepped back and, with all his strength behind it, shoved his shoulder into the door. It opened easily, sending him sprawling to the throne room floor. Aziraphale was at his side in a moment, helping him to his feet. Both had kept their eyes fixed firmly to the gleaming white marble of the floor, the red crimson of the carpet.

“… We’ll have to look eventually, angel.”

They did.


End file.
